Gender Issues in Design and Technology in the Primary School

Design and technology is a relatively new subject in the primary school curriculum and, although it is believed to be important in aiding national prosperity through technological progress, there is little to be found about it yet in the research literature. Experience of the curriculum in general is a dominant feature of school life - particularly since the introduction of the National Curriculum - and yet it is not a developed area of research, either. This is a pro-feminist ethnographic study that begins to address these gaps in the literature. It explores how children in their final year in a primary school approach their work in this curricular area and how they use it in the construction of their own gender identities. This dissertation demonstrates how pupils articulate a discourse of equal opportunities whilst subjected to the powerful discourse of gender dichotomy. It shows how children demarcate boundaries between the sexes and have ways of keeping each other on the correct side of the gender divide. Popular cultural resources such as sport, music and television play an important part in children's lives. The children in this study take images and ideas from these cultural resources as well as other aspects of their lives to use in their classroom work in design and technology and through that to the process of constructing their gender identities. The study concludes with some thoughts on its implications for the future

Fundamental Characterization of Oxygen Nanobubbles

A hypoxic environment is created by tumors’ incredible growth rate. Hypoxia provides radioresistance to the tumors, thus making radiation treatment less effective. The issue is that increasing the radiation leads to increased side effects in patients. Our goal for the oxygen-filled nanobubble is to deliver oxygen to the tumor to lessen radioresistance and make radiation treatment more efficient. However, we need preliminary research to understand and improve the nanobubbles before further research and implementation. To do this, we synthesized different batches of nanobubbles to optimize the production method and find the best container and temperature to store nanobubbles. We measured the oxygen release profile of the nanobubbles and obtained Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) images and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) data to characterize the nanobubbles. The nanobubbles’ peak oxygenation happened 4-5 days after synthesis, and 3 mL SKS glass vials were optimal for storing the nanobubbles. We have not chosen the best synthesis technique or storage temperature yet, due to inadequate TEM images and inconclusive oxygen profile data. We will eventually conduct a proof-of-concept experiment on mice to see if nanobubbles improve irradiation. The optimal storing condition aids our chances for a successful experiment by limiting undesired oxygen release before entering the mouse’s body

Bi-Directional DC-DC Converter

This project was developed with the purpose of creating an efficient energy management system for the DC House project, with a centralized 12V battery system fed by a 48V Multiple Input Single Output Source (MISO). The energy management system will consist of a bidirectional DC-DC converter. During the day when the renewable sources produce enough energy to fulfill the load’s energy demand, the converter will make use of the excess energy by taking a 48V DC input and stepping it down to a 12V DC output in order to charge a 12V 100 Ah battery. When renewable sources can no longer supply the energy required by the load the necessary energy will be pulled from the 12V battery. The converter at this time will take the 12V DC input from the battery and step it up to a 48V output connected to DC House load. The proposed design was tested using LTSpice simulation whose results showed that the converter can indeed provide the bi-directional power flow as desired. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the originally planned hardware construction must be abandoned following campus shut-down and our inability to get access to lab equipment necessary to conduct the hardware development and testing. Simulation results also showed that the proposed design was able to meet the less than 2% line and load regulation requirements. Furthermore, the efficiency of the proposed converter was measured to be around 85% at full load

SoK: Cryptographically Protected Database Search

Protected database search systems cryptographically isolate the roles of reading from, writing to, and administering the database. This separation limits unnecessary administrator access and protects data in the case of system breaches. Since protected search was introduced in 2000, the area has grown rapidly; systems are offered by academia, start-ups, and established companies. However, there is no best protected search system or set of techniques. Design of such systems is a balancing act between security, functionality, performance, and usability. This challenge is made more difficult by ongoing database specialization, as some users will want the functionality of SQL, NoSQL, or NewSQL databases. This database evolution will continue, and the protected search community should be able to quickly provide functionality consistent with newly invented databases. At the same time, the community must accurately and clearly characterize the tradeoffs between different approaches. To address these challenges, we provide the following contributions: 1) An identification of the important primitive operations across database paradigms. We find there are a small number of base operations that can be used and combined to support a large number of database paradigms. 2) An evaluation of the current state of protected search systems in implementing these base operations. This evaluation describes the main approaches and tradeoffs for each base operation. Furthermore, it puts protected search in the context of unprotected search, identifying key gaps in functionality. 3) An analysis of attacks against protected search for different base queries. 4) A roadmap and tools for transforming a protected search system into a protected database, including an open-source performance evaluation platform and initial user opinions of protected search.Comment: 20 pages, to appear to IEEE Security and Privac

1864-01-25 John H. Rice, Hannibal Hamlin, and others recommend appointment of Lieutenant Colonel O.S. Putnam

https://digitalmaine.com/cw_me_22nd_regiment_corr/1092/thumbnail.jp

A Measure of Obesity: BMI versus Subcutaneous Fat Patterns in Young Athletes and Nonathletes

Although the body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) is widely used as a surrogate measure of adiposity, it is a measure of excess weight, rather than excess body fat, relative to height. The BMI classification system is derived from cut points obtained from the general population. The influence of large muscle mass on BMI in athletes and young adults may misclassify these individuals as overweight and obese. Therefore, the use of subcutaneous adipose tissue topography (SAT-Top) may be more effective than BMI in assessing obesity in physically active people and young adults. The purposes of this study were 1) to describe the relationship between the BMI and SAT-Top of young athletes and nonathletes, and 2) to determine the accuracy of the BMI as a measure of overweight. Height, weight, BMI and SAT-Top were determined in 64 males (25.0±6.7) and 42 females (24.8±7.0), who were subsequently separated into two even groups (athletes and nonathletes). The optical Lipometer device was applied to measure the thickness of subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT).While BMI was similar, male athletes showed a 50.3% lower total SAT thickness compared to their male nonathlete controls. Even though female athletes had significantly higher BMI and weight scores, their total SAT thickness was 34.9% lower than their nonathlete controls. These results suggest subcutaneous fat patterns are a better screening tool to characterize fatness in physically active young people